


My Dearest, Alexandra

by performativezippers



Series: Copy Edits, or all of the ways a slip of the hand can lead to something good [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, In which copy editing once again plays a major role, No lesbians get shot though, Sanvers - Freeform, The Hamilton Sanvers AU that no one asked for, in which alex is extra as fuuuuuck, not that type of Hamilton AU, they will never be satisfied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-14 08:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16488857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/performativezippers/pseuds/performativezippers
Summary: The first time Maggie sees her is at the Winter’s Ball. It’s a dance – a large, formal dance for all the wealthy elite of New York to gather with the rebel military leaders. To rub elbows, to make connections. Well, more like, to re-make connections that have already been established for at least a generation, which is functionally an eternity in colonies this young.It’s 1780, and the war is in full swing, but tonight there’s an orchestra and everyone is wearing their finest and it doesn’t feel at all like war.[A Sanvers Hamilton AU]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to have listened to Hamilton to read this, but just know:  
> (1) your life will be better after you've listened to Hamilton  
> (2) anything that rhymes or sounds remotely well written is definitely from Hamilton  
> (3) all the gay bullshit is not from Hamilton
> 
> All three chapters are written, and they'll be out within a day or two

The first time Maggie sees her is at the Winter’s Ball. It’s a dance – a large, formal dance for all the wealthy elite of New York to gather with the rebel military leaders. To rub elbows, to make connections. Well, more like, to re-make connections that have already been established for at least a generation, which is functionally an eternity in colonies this young.

 

It’s 1780, and the war is in full swing, but tonight there’s an orchestra and everyone is wearing their finest and it doesn’t feel at all like war. Maggie’s wearing her light blue gown, the one trimmed with the cream lace. She’s worn it before, to similar balls, but that was back at home.

 

There’s no one here that would have been at any of those balls, back in Charleston.

 

It smells like food and there’s loud laughter over the sound of the music and people are dancing and it doesn’t feel at all like war, until someone takes Maggie’s elbow. She turns her head to the side and she sees her brother and he’s wearing his uniform, and oh. Right.

 

It’s the Revolution.

 

* * *

 

They make their way around the room. John introduces her to everyone he knows – men he’s fought with, mostly, and their wives and daughters. He takes the time to introduce her to a few single soldiers as well, but they both know it’s a helpless cause.

 

Maggie is not going to marry a solider.

 

Maggie is not going to marry at all, if she has anything to do with it.

 

And John – sweet, lovely John – has never pushed it. He’s never asked why, but he’s accepted that her goal in life is to be a maiden aunt, one of the blustering, relatively independent women who runs her own household and has, in recent years, been wading out onto the battlefields to bandage wounded men.

 

And it’s not like she’ll need to marry for money, because the Sawyers have been rich for generations. Not from slaving, thank god, but from shipping. Shipping goods, not people, thank god.

 

But so Maggie doesn’t need to marry for money, and she doesn’t want to marry for love, so John introduces her to young men for formality’s sake, and then continues escorting her around the room.

 

Maggie doesn’t mention that she’s more taken by the women, their dresses and jewels glittering in the candlelight, and John doesn’t ask.

 

* * *

 

The people are all swirling around, but Maggie notices after a while that there’s a sort of hub. The people are all moving about, but they’re all swirling around something. She assumes it must be General Washington or someone else important, and she tries to dismiss it from her mind.

 

But then, just a for a second, there’s a gap in the crowd and she can see straight into the center of the hub. And what she sees takes her breath away, and it feels like she doesn’t get it back for years.

 

It’s not General Washington. It’s the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen.

 

“Ah,” John says, following her glance. “The Danvers sisters. Alexandra, Kara, and Nia.”

 

Maggie’s heard of them. They’re even wealthier than the Sawyers are, and all three sisters are eligible for marriage. Every soldier she’s ever met wants to marry one of them, and even John has been heard to say, “Is it a question of _if_ , friend, or _which one_?”

 

She’s always thought that was quite vile, but looking over at them now, well. She gets it.

 

* * *

 

At least an hour later, and Maggie is fading. Her shoes are pinching and her dress is itching and she’d really rather be at home, curled up in her favorite armchair, reading a book in front of the fire.

 

She leans against a wall, tucked into a back corner of the large room, hoping no one will notice her for the next hour or so until she can convince John to escort her home. She doesn’t usually wish to be man, not exactly, but at times like this the limitation of her sex painfully chafes against her heart. If she were a man, she could see herself home.

 

If she were a man, she lets herself dream for a second, she could walk right up to that Danvers sister and say—

 

“Hi.”

 

Maggie’s head shoots up, and oh god in heaven have mercy.

 

She pushes herself off the wall. “Hi,” she manages.

 

“Having a good time?” the Danvers sister asks, her head tilted a little to the side, a sardonic smile peaking out. Her dress is orange and it shouldn’t look good with her skin tone but it _does_.

 

Maggie can’t help but shrug. “It’s alright,” she manages to say.

 

The Danvers sister actually grins, then. “You strike me as a woman who has never been satisfied.”

 

Maggie gulps, because she knows what _satisfied_ is a euphemism for, and she surely has not ever been satisfied and if the rumors are to be believed, neither have any of the Danvers sisters. But there’s something in the air between them that’s giving her the confidence to look Danvers up and down before she says, “Is that right?”

 

She hums in agreement. “You’re like me,” she declares, but her voice is soft and the moment between them is incredibly public but also wildly intimate. “I’ve never been satisfied.”

 

And every man at this party, Maggie’s own brother included, would literally kill for the chance to marry her. She could have her pick of any man in the colonies, in the revolution. Maggie doesn’t know why she’s unsatisfied but she knows immediately that she’d give all of her fingers and toes to find out.

 

“My name’s Alexandra Danvers,” she offers, and Maggie almost shudders. She’s _the_ Danvers sister, then. The eldest.

 

“Margaret Sawyer,” Maggie says softly, slipping her hand into Alexandra’s like they’re men. “Maggie.”

 

“Maggie,” Alexandra repeats back, her hand still in Maggie’s, her voice something like mesmerized. “Alex,” she says softly, staring deeply in Maggie’s eyes. “Just…Alex.”

 

* * *

 

They only talk for two minutes, maybe three minutes, but everything they say is in total agreement. It feels like a dream, like a dance. Maggie has never, not once in her life, connected with another person like this. She wants to spend forever here, in this shadowed corner of this sweaty hall, with the sound of the orchestra fading behind the sound of Alex’s voice.

 

Behind the touch of Alex’s hand on her arm.

 

She wants to get lost in Alex’s eyes, in her face, in her presence, and never emerge. Not for the revolution, not for anything.

 

But then, from behind Alex, Maggie sees someone making their way towards her. It’s John, and with a slam like a carriage hitting her in the chest, she suddenly realizes three fundamental things at the exact same time.

 

Number one: They’re girls in a world where their only job is to marry rich. Sure, Maggie can hide behind John, but Alex’s father has no sons. _She’s_ the one who has to social climb, the one who has to maintain and cement the family fortune. She’s the oldest and the wittiest and if she doesn’t marry well, then the insidious gossip of New York City could demolish the family in an instant. These are unstable times, and unmarried young women are a liability.

 

Number two: Every man in this room wants to marry her because she’s a Danvers sister, because she can elevate their status. “ _Is it a question of **if** , friend, or **which one**?”_ No man here will propose because of love, but every unmarried man here would propose in a heartbeat. Maggie doesn’t know her at all, really (or possibly she knows her better than she knows even herself), but she wants to protect her from that. To find her someone who can protect her from that.

 

Number three: The person approaching is John, and he has a dumbstruck look on his face that Maggie realizes must closely resemble the one on her face. And John is kind and careful and loving and he would treat her well. He would protect her from the others, from all the men who would simply use her name and her fortune to make a name for themselves. John has a (smaller) fortune and name himself. John doesn’t _need_ her, but he wants her, and maybe that’s enough.

 

So Maggie does the one thing she’s pretty sure she’ll regret for the rest of her life. She reaches out and takes Alex’s hand, turning her around and walking a few steps forward to meeting John.

 

“Where are you taking me?” Alex asks, her voice a little breathless, like she wants Maggie to take her somewhere. To take her far away from this place.

 

“I’m about to change your life,” Maggie tells her, trying to keep her voice level.

 

“Well.” There’s something downright sultry in Alex’s tone and Maggie has never heard a sound like that before in her life. “Then by all means,” she murmurs, and how close must her mouth be to Maggie’s ear for Maggie to hear her over the orchestra? “Lead the way.”

 

Maggie leads her over to John, who is almost gaping with surprise that his wallflower sister is holding hands with the prize of the ball, and leading said prize right over to him.

 

“Have you met Alexandra Danvers?” she asks him, dropping her hand from Alex’s only through iron will.

 

“No, I haven’t yet had the pleasure,” he says easily. “Jonathan Sawyer.”

 

Alex turns quickly to Maggie. “Sawyer?” she asks, and there’s something tight in her voice.

  
“My brother.”

 

And something changes in Alex, then. Hardens. Straightens up. And Maggie hadn’t noticed her slowly changing but now she’s once again the woman that Maggie had first caught sight of, across the ballroom. Now she’s Alexandra Danvers, the envy of all.

 

And, just maybe, over in the dark corner with Maggie, for those two minutes, maybe three minutes, she’d been someone else. Just Alex.

 

“Thank you for your service,” she’s saying to John, and she’s not simpering but she’s close.

 

John grins. “If it takes a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it.”

 

Maggie feels like her heart is being sliced out of her chest. “Well,” she manages, trying to sound like she isn’t about to throw up. “I’ll leave you to it.”

 

* * *

 

Alex was right. She’ll never be satisfied.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, my hopefully new and old imaginary friends.
> 
> Come visit me on my tumblr (performativezippers) and twitter (p_zippers) to learn useless things about my life, read my rants, see endless gifs about dinosaurs, and support my other work. Heart ya.
> 
> p.s. please vote on Nov 6 if you can, oh my god please


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second chapter today. if you missed the first, don't read this one yet! #spoilers
> 
> third and final will be up sometime tomorrow, pending airplanes

Everything happens so quickly after that. It’s only two weeks before John is asking Jeremiah Danvers for Alex’s hand in marriage.

 

Maggie hasn’t seen Alex since the ball, because the majority of the (very short) courtship happened in letters and in John’s visits to the Danvers house.

 

It’s for the best. Maggie doesn’t know how she’ll ever handle seeing Alex again. She’d never felt unsatisfied before – never felt unfulfilled, never wished for love. But now she can’t remember how she’d ever thought the life of the maiden aunt could be enough for her. She doesn’t want to be an aunt to Alex’s children, rattling purposelessly around John’s huge house, gripping at the maids and reading in front of the fire.

 

Not with Alex just a floor away, just a room away, just a moment away.

 

It’s the worst torture she can think of.

 

* * *

 

Jeremiah Danvers dies. He catches a stray bullet on the battlefield and he dies. The wedding is postponed, obviously, while all three Danvers sisters and their mother observe the full period of mourning.

 

Maggie and John attend the funeral. It’s large and formal; Jeremiah was important and beloved.

 

In the reception line, John squeezes Alex’s hands between his own, but he can’t offer any other physical comfort. It isn’t proper. They aren’t married yet and Alex is in mourning.

 

Maggie has no such compunctions. She’s more grateful than ever to be a woman as she follows the lead of the other young women in line, grasping Alex’s hands and leaning forward to give her a light kiss on her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Alex,” she whispers, and Alex’s grip on Maggie’s fingers is bruising.

 

“Please stay,” Alex whisper back. Her voice is hoarse and she’s likely to break all the bones in Maggie’s hand.

 

“I will,” Maggie promises, breathless and thoughtless and honest. “I will. I’ll be at the house. I will. As long as you want.”

 

That seems to have been the right thing to say. Alex nods and releases Maggie’s hands, sliding their fingers apart with clear reluctance. Maggie follows John down the line, gently expressing condolences to Kara and Nia and Mrs. Danvers before they exit the church. They mill around outside in the light drizzle, John speaking softly with his men, before they travel over to the Danvers house for the wake.

 

It’s a flurry inside. Servants are bustling around, and the wealthy, elite, important, and military decorated are all jammed inside. The sight of black and the smell of wet wool permeates the house, and Maggie can’t help but wrinkle up her nose.

 

John quickly leaves Maggie to her own devices, just as she prefers. There’s only so long she can politely nod while men discuss the military strategies they won’t include her in, after all. She meanders through the crowd, slipping between people as well as she can. Her dress isn’t quite as wide as some of the others, so she’s able to make relatively good time through the house.

 

She finds herself climbing the stairs, slowly, one stair at a time, admiring the vast array of family portraits decorating the stairwell. Judging by the clothes, they must be going back generations. All the way at the top of landing is one that Maggie is sure is recent. Two people, easily recognizable as a younger Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers are painted in stoic stillness, although there’s something like a smile playing at the corners of Eliza's mouth. This artist was clearly better than the others; whereas the earlier paintings depict the children as shapeless blobs, in this one Maggie can actually see Alex and Kara’s features in the little girls. Nia’s face is obscured in baby roundness, but Alex must be six or seven years old, and she looks just like her adult self.

 

“They had to bribe me with a pony to sit still long enough to be painted,” a soft voice says from behind her.

 

Maggie turns, nearly losing her balance on the top stair. Alex’s hands are on her waist instantly, steadying her.

 

“Sounds like you got the better end of the bargain,” she hears herself say, but her mind is completely focused on Alex’s hands, still tight around her body. She wishes, fervently, that she weren’t wearing a corset and all these damn layers, because she can’t feel anything but the lightest pressure.

 

“Take a break. Come away with me for a moment.” Maggie isn’t sure if it’s a question or a command, but she’s nodding anyway, reaching down to delicately lift her skirts enough that she won’t trip.

 

Alex leads her upstairs, opening the second door on the right of the hallway. It’s a big room with a large bay window. There are two beds, and she doesn’t need Alex’s soft voice to know this is where she and Kara sleep.

 

Alex closes the door behind them before walking over to the window and staring out. Maggie wants to follow, but she looks around the room instead. Her eyes land on a bookshelf, and she makes her way over.

 

Some of the titles are familiar – the same books, with their well-worn spines and tea spots rest on her bookshelf at home. Others aren’t.

 

She sees a copy of “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine and she smiles. Of course Alex has read it. She’s read it too.

 

“What are you looking at?”

 

Maggie turns to the window, to Alex’s soft voice. She sounds vulnerable, young. Maggie wordlessly holds up the pamphlet, and Alex smiles. She takes a few steps closer, and Maggie can feel the chill from the window radiating off her dress. “Have you read it?”

 

Maggie nods. “Twice.”

 

Alex smiles at her – really, actually smiles. “I quote it, sometimes. It makes men think I’m intense, or insane, but…” she shrugs. “I’m just waiting.”

 

Maggie can barely breathe. Alex _is_ intense, and that’s why Maggie can’t even blink. “For what?”

 

“A change. Not a revolution, but,” she sighs a little, reaching out to touch the pamphlet. Connecting their hands through the paper. “But a revelation.”

 

“What does that mean?” Maggie whispers, and Alex is so close that it _hurts_ , and Maggie knows exactly what it means.

 

“I’m waiting for everything to be different,” Alex whispers back, and she’s looking right into Maggie’s eyes like maybe she can’t look away either. “For all of this to make sense.”

 

Maggie takes a deep breath, and she carefully places the pamphlet back on the bookshelf. She reaches out for Alex’s hand and guides her back over to the window. She, slowly and carefully, releases Alex’s hand (and the dismayed sound that Alex makes at the loss of contact is _absolutely_ a revelation), and then wraps her arm around Alex’s waist.

 

She drops her head onto Alex’s shoulder, and Alex’s arm comes around Maggie’s shoulders without a thought.

 

“I think some of it is starting to make sense,” Maggie whispers, and Alex just wordlessly pulls her in tighter.

 

* * *

 

John’s unit is sent back into the field. Because he hasn’t married Alex yet – the formal period of mourning is long and the war waits for no one – Maggie can’t move into the Danvers house. And it isn’t proper for her to stay alone in New York City.

 

So she’s called back to Charleston.

 

She goes to say goodbye to Alex. To all the Danvers sisters, technically.

 

Mrs. Danvers invites her in for tea, and she graciously accepts. They sip their tea and eat their sandwiches, the five of them, making polite conversation about the war and society and potential suitors for Kara and Nia. They ask about Charleston, about what Maggie will do there, and she shrugs a little bit. “I hope to be involved with the business, while John is away. My uncle is growing old, and I hope to relieve some of the burden from him.”

 

“Has he no sons to help him?” Mrs. Danvers asks, but Alex interjects before Maggie can answer.

 

“Women are more than capable of running businesses, mother.”

 

Maggie grins, but Mrs. Danvers looks like she’s getting a headache. “Don’t start, Alexandra, please.”

 

But Alex starts. “It should read, _we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men **and women** are created equal_.”

 

“Yes, dear.” Mrs. Danvers’ voice is beyond weary. “We all heard you shout that Thomas Jefferson.”

 

Maggie chokes on her tea. Everyone but Alex politely pretends they didn’t hear it. Alex tosses another napkin at her, and Maggie desperately doesn’t want to leave.

 

* * *

 

Maggie leaves. The journey is long but uneventful. She settles back in Charleston, back in her uncle’s house in the nicest neighborhood near the shipyards, where all the wealthy merchants live.

 

Her first morning, over breakfast, her uncle’s butler hands her a letter. She assumes it must be from John, so she opens it right at the table, but she stops once she sees the delicate handwriting inside.

 

She’s seen that writing before, in letters addressed to John.

 

It’s a letter from Alex.

 

* * *

 

Not a single day goes by without a correspondence. A letter isn’t delivered every day – it’s wartime, and the distance is long. Sometimes there won’t be a letter for three days, and other days three letters will come at once. But Maggie keeps them and obsessively checks the dates on them and she can see that Alex writes her every single day.

 

Maggie writes her back, every single day.

 

* * *

 

Alex writes to her about how things are in New York – about the balls, the battles, the political machinations. About how things are with her family, which mostly means Kara. They’re incredibly close, Maggie learns, and Kara is desperate to find love and to make a name for herself. Nia is much younger and most insular; she’d like nothing more than to marry a bookish man she’s known all her life and settle down in her mother’s house.

 

But Kara wants to live big, to travel the world, to raise money for important causes, to leave her stamp on the world.

 

Maggie doesn’t know what Alex wants. It’s confusing, because every word in every letter is dripping with want, with need, with dissatisfaction, but Maggie doesn’t know for _what_.

 

But writing to Maggie seems to help. Receiving Maggie’s letters seems to help. And so Maggie writes every day, and she rabidly consumes Alex’s letters the second they arrive. She tells herself, each morning, to wait. To be patient. To wait until she’s going to sleep at night to read the day’s letter. Or least to space them out, to read one a day, even if two or three or five arrive at once.

 

But she doesn’t. She can’t.

 

She’s insatiable. She’s unsatisfied.

 

* * *

 

Maggie helps her uncle with his accounts, and she writes to Alex nightly, and she reads her books, and she waits. For the war to end. For John to come home. To be called back to New York. To watch John marry Alex. To live just a moment away from her.

 

Alex waits too.

 

She never mentions John in her letters.

 

* * *

 

John mentions Alex in his letters to Maggie, but it feels like a formality. They hardly know each other, after all. He’d shown Maggie Alex’s letters to him, early in their courtship, and they’d been so formal. Kind, and sort of funny, but not open.

 

Anyone with half a brain could have written them.

 

They’re nothing like the letters Maggie gets. They’re nothing like the letters Maggie writes. John’s letters back had been full of bold declarations of love, of a life together, of the family they would make together.

 

Maggie can’t make those declarations. She can’t offer that type of love, that type of future. Her letters are softer, quieter, but she hopes that Alex can feel them anyway. Can tell that Maggie is writing everything she possibly can. That Maggie is writing, every day, not a revolution but a revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, my hopefully new and old imaginary friends.
> 
> Come visit me on my tumblr (performativezippers) and twitter (p_zippers) to learn useless things about my life, read my rants, see endless gifs about dinosaurs, and support my other work. Heart ya.
> 
> p.s. please vote on Nov 6 if you can, oh my god please


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops it's 4 chapters now, to make them all a similar length. Chapter 4 will be up first thing tomorrow.

It should feel wrong.

 

Alex is engaged. Alex is engaged to someone else. To Maggie’s _brother_. And here Maggie is, writing her love letter after love letter, even if they’re both pretending that isn’t what they are.

 

But this is love, and she knows it. And she knows that Alex belongs to John – to a man – not to her. She knows that what she feels for Alex is sinful. Impossible. Wrong in every possible way. But it feels…it feels not right, exactly, but inevitable. Unstoppable. Unchangeable. Alex is…she’s inimitable, original, truly and completely unique among women. And Maggie never stood a chance.

 

She’d always thought love was an active choice, but this feels like _it_ chose _her_. And she doesn’t understand, because someone as pure and as good and as wonderful as Alex deserves a saint. Someone like John. But Maggie’s learned these past few months that love doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints; it just takes and it takes and it takes and it takes. It’s tearing Maggie apart, in so many ways, but she just keeps loving anyway.

 

Alex deserves a saint. She deserves John. But she’s writing to Maggie, every day, with love heavy in every line. Maggie wants to set her free, to return her to John, but she can’t. All she can do is write and write and wait for something to change. For the war to end, to be called back to New York.

 

If there’s a reason that she’s the one by Alex’s side, the one Alex pours her heart out to, when so many have tried – John and every single other man in all thirteen colonies – then god damn it, she’s willing to wait for it.

 

* * *

 

The tide of the war looks like it might be turning. Alex writes as much to Maggie, from her more central location in New York.

 

Maggie writes back, but Alex doesn’t respond. It’s an entire week without a letter. For the first few days, Maggie assumes that the war has mucked up the mail route. It wouldn’t be the first time. But a whole week is…it’s a long time.

 

It usually takes a week, sometimes a week and a half, for their letters to make it from Charleston to New York. But one week slips into two, into three, and Maggie wonders if something has happened. If something is wrong with Alex, or with Kara. Or with John. With the war.

 

But the newspapers don’t report anything, and Maggie starts to worry that she’s said something wrong. She doesn’t even remember her last letter, not clearly. But something has happened and Alex isn’t writing back and Maggie honestly considers giving up. On everything. Maggie’s never been a patient person, but if she’d known that she was running out of time, that this whatever-it-is with Alex was going to end, she’d have written more. She’d have written non-stop. She’d have written every second she was alive.

 

She’d have jumped on horse and ridden to New York herself.

 

Maggie had wondered, sometimes, during the months when the letters had steadily flowed, if she felt this strongly because the letters kept coming. If they’d stopped, if they’d slowed, would she have felt this less urgently? Would her thoughts, her dreams, her notions have subsided? Would a break between letters have let her focus on something else?

 

But then they stop, and, no. Nothing has subsided. In fact, it intensifies. It peaks. It throttles and shakes and groans inside of her, and she can’t think about anything else.

 

It just takes and it takes and it takes and it takes.

 

* * *

 

At the end of the third silent week, Maggie’s aunt and uncle are out on a social call. She’s alone in the house – well, as alone as you can be in a house full of servants. The doorbell rings, but Maggie, curled up in front of the fire, desperately trying to pay attention to her favorite book, ignores it. It’s probably just a delivery, and this is the exact reason why they have a butler.

 

But he quickly comes into her sitting room, knocking, bowing, apologizing, and asking her to follow him to the door. Someone would like to speak with her, he says.

 

And the sun is setting behind the clouds and it’s pouring rain, and Maggie can’t imagine who could be here. If it were John he’d already be inside the house, hugging her and ruining her dress with the rain dripping from his uniform.

 

Maggie puts down her book, and she follows the butler, confused beyond belief. She hopes it isn’t some dumb fool boy from town, asking to court her. It’s been three weeks since she’s heard from Alex and she really doesn’t have the patience for that right now.

 

But the butler leads her to the door and then fades into the background and Maggie freezes. She can’t move, she can’t breathe, she can’t think.

 

Because it’s Alex.

 

It’s Alex, standing on the step, outside of Maggie’s uncle’s house, in Charleston. 800 miles from where she should be.

 

It’s Alex, standing in the pouring rain, her hat doing nothing to keep the rain out of her face. She’s set a bag down on the step, and the rain is both soaking it from the top and seeping up through the bottom, but Alex isn’t looking down at it.

  
She’s clutching something in her hand, and it looks like she isn’t breathing either.

 

“Alex.” It comes out like a gasp, and Maggie would swear that she’s not moving but somehow she’s closer. To the door, to the rain that’s started to splatter her shoes and the front of her dress. To Alex.

 

“Alex, what…?”

 

But Alex holds up a hand, stopping her. “Did you mean it?” She asks, and her voice is raspy and desperate and Maggie has never felt like this, ever in her life. Her stomach is swooping and spilling out and she wonders faintly if she’s dying.

 

“Did I mean what?”

 

Alex is still outside, the rain still coming down in sheets. “Your letter. This letter.” She clenches her hands, and Maggie sees that it’s a letter, in Alex’s hands. A letter that she’s pressing to her chest as tightly as she can, protecting it from the rain at the expense of her dress and her hair and her face and her bag.

 

“Come inside,” Maggie says, finally able to think, just a tiny amount. “Please. It’s…it’s cold. Alex. Please.” She reaches out and she grasps Alex’s arm with her warm, dry hand and it’s like sparks.

 

Alex’s breath catches at the contact and, after a long moment, she nods. It’s a little jerky, but she nods, and she steps inside. Maggie darts her arm out, snatching the sopping bag from the ground. She hands it off to the ubiquitous butler, asking him to dry the contents, and then she hurries Alex into the sitting room.

 

The fire is still going, and Maggie closes the door before leading Alex over to it. Alex is freezing.

 

But she’s still clutching the letter.

 

“Alex,” Maggie whispers again. She’s sure this can’t be real but she feels herself breaking into a smile anyway. “It’s good to see your face.”

 

But Alex doesn’t smile. She just asks it again, “Did you mean it?” her face intent and intense and focused. Maggie reaches out to remove Alex’s dripping wet hat, unpinning it with careful, expert hands. Alex’s hair is a wet, scraggly mess, and Maggie loves her so impossibly much.

 

“I don’t…did I mean what?”

 

“I…you sent this, weeks ago. And it…you…” Alex takes a breath, and then she straightens up, and there’s something heroic in her stance. Something like steel in her eyes. “I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase,” she says, and that’s so absurd that Maggie laughs.

 

“What?”

 

But Alex presses on. “It changed the meaning. Did you intend it?” She fumbles the letter open, her hands trembling. “One stoke, one comma, and it’s consumed my waking days. I…I haven’t been able to think about anything else.” She opens it, smooths it, and then looks up at Maggie, starting raptly into her eyes with something like fire. “It says, _My dearest Alexandra_ , with a comma after dearest.”

 

She pauses for a second, and Maggie sucks in a breath. “You’ve written, _My dearest, Alexandra_.”

 

Alex is the one who was out in the frigid rain, but Maggie is the one who is frozen. “Did you mean it?” Alex whispers again. “Am I – did you? Do you…”

 

And Alex had asked for a revelation, that sad night, up in her room, and Maggie has never been able to lie to her. “Yes,” she whispers, and her voice is hoarse and afraid. “Yes. I meant it. You’re…” her voice cracks but she keeps going, because Alex came all this way and she deserves the truth. “You’re the dearest thing to me. That I’ll ever have.”

 

Alex lets out a puff of air, something that Maggie hopes is relief but worries might be fear.

 

“You love me,” Alex finally whispers, and Maggie doesn’t know if it’s a question or a statement.

 

“Yes,” she admits, and she shouldn’t be looking but she’s something of a masochist and she can’t keep from staring into Alex’s eyes.

 

“Like John does?”

 

And Maggie should leave it. She should deny it. It’s 1781 and she’s not a man and Alex is a Danvers sister. But she doesn’t. She means to, but her mouth has said, “ ** _More_** than John does,” before she’s even made up her mind.

 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Alex sighs out, and Maggie still doesn’t know what’s happening. What’s going to happen.

 

Alex tucks the letter away and pushes her wet hair back out of her face, for all the world like they’re done with this conversation. “Alright,” she says, and her tone is _businesslike_ and Maggie may have whiplash. Alex starts walking towards the door. “Do you have somewhere I can freshen up? Perhaps borrow a dress?”

 

But that’s too much. Maggie has said, well, everything, and Alex came all this way but hasn’t said _anything_. “Alex,” she manages, and it’s more of a whine and a complaint than a question but she’s more afraid than she’s ever been in her life. “Alex, what…what’s…” and she doesn’t know if she wants to say _what’s happening_ or _what happens next_ or _what did you want me to say_.

 

But Alex looks back over, and something must click, because her businesslike façade is dropping, and there’s something powerfully soft in her eyes. “Maggie,” she breathes, and she’s walking back over to where Maggie is standing, stock still, next to the fire. “Maggie, don’t you know?”

 

And Maggie would swear upon penalty of death that she knows nothing. She shakes her head, just a little, still staring into Alex’s eyes.

 

Alex clearly takes pity on her, reaching up with both hands to cup Maggie’s face. “Maggie,” she sighs again. “Maggie, you’ve been the dearest thing to me for a long time.”

 

Maggie’s breath hitches, and it doesn’t feel like a confession of love between friends, but those words could easily be meant that way. Women have passionate, intimate friendships all the time, especially during the war. Being _dear_ doesn’t usually mean what Maggie’s meant by it, accidentally or not.

 

But blissfully, perfectly, wonderfully, Alex keeps going. “I’ve loved you since that first night, at the ball,” Alex confesses. “You were so beautiful, and I…” she laughs a little, her hands still tight on Maggie’s face. “I forgot my own name.”

 

“Alex.” It’s all she can do to whisper her name, to ask her to say it. She’s been so still – so frozen – but with the way her heart jumps out of her chest, her body trembling, her nerves screaming a mile a minute, maybe she wasn’t standing still at all. Maybe she was simply lying wait. Poised, crouched, ready to spring.

 

“Be with me,” Alex says, and Maggie doesn’t know if it’s a question or a command. “Be with me. Run away with me. Be with me. You’re the only…I’ll never be satisfied. Not without you. Not without this.” She strokes her thumbs across Maggie’s cheeks, and it’s only then that Maggie realizes that she’s crying.

 

“Yes,” Maggie’s saying. She’s nodding and her hands are grasping at the wet waist of Alex’s dress. “Yes. Please.”

 

Alex gently presses their foreheads together and they just stand there for a moment. Alex’s dress is dripping on the rug, and water from her hair is running down her neck, but Maggie can’t move yet.

 

She’s hungry and freezing and it smells like wet wool and Alex is trembling under her hands, but Maggie is completely satisfied.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, my hopefully new and old imaginary friends.
> 
> Come visit me on my tumblr (performativezippers) and twitter (p_zippers) to learn useless things about my life, read my rants, see endless gifs about dinosaurs, and support my other work. Heart ya.
> 
> p.s. please vote on Nov 6 if you can, oh my god please


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last chapter here. i love you all. thank you for being on this strange little journey with me.
> 
> one last time...

Maggie asks for dinner to be delivered to her bedroom. She asks if any of the guest rooms are aired out and warmed up, even though she knows that they aren’t. “It’s alright,” she tells the staff. “She can stay with me tonight.”

 

Alex grins at her as soon as the maid has left the room.

 

Alex’s smile…it outshines the morning sun. One smile, and Maggie is completely, utterly undone.

 

Alex is wearing Maggie’s clothes – a brown housedress that doesn’t require a corset. It’s too short on her, and it’s the most endearing thing Maggie has ever seen.

 

They eat slowly, in front of the fire in Maggie’s room.

 

“I already wrote to John, in Boston,” Alex says suddenly, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Before I came. I wrote to him, and I told him that I didn’t wish to marry him anymore.”

 

Maggie swallows heavily. “Did he respond?”

 

Alex shrugs a little. “I left soon after I sent it. I suppose I’ll find out eventually.”

 

Maggie nods.

 

“Will it…can we do this? Can you do this?” Alex isn’t clear, but Maggie knows what she means. She and John are close. It’s not the same, because Maggie can’t marry Alex, can’t give her what John could give her. Honestly, that likely makes it worse.

 

“We can do this,” Maggie tells her firmly. “It’ll be…complicated, for him and me. But I…” she takes a deep breath. “I think he wanted to marry you, Alex, but he didn’t _know_ you. Not really. I think he would make a very good husband, but I…god, Alex, it’s selfish and I love him, but I want you for myself. I can’t…I can’t give you up. Not even to him. And I think, in time, he’ll find someone else, and he’ll make them a very good husband.”

 

Alex reaches across the table and takes Maggie’s hand in hers. “If it helps,” she says softly, “even if you’d said no, tonight, I still wouldn’t have married him. Not now that I know what love feels like.”

 

Maggie feels like she’s flying.

 

 _John can keep all of Boston_ , Maggie thinks to herself. _Alex, she’s mine_.

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Maggie says thoughtfully, not even twenty minutes later, “It’s a good thing I’m not a man.”

 

They’re sitting in front of the fire, dinner plates pushed to the side. Both chairs are facing the fire, but they keep turning to look at each other. A moment ago Alex, boldly, had reached over and taken Maggie’s hand.

 

Maggie’s running her thumb up and down Alex’s skin, and it’s the softest thing she’s ever touched, and Alex is nearly purring with pleasure.

 

“Why’s that?” Alex mumbles, her eyes closed in bliss. She must be exhausted from the journey, Maggie thinks. She’s so beautiful, but a little pale, and she has circles under her eyes.

 

“If I were a man, and you were breaking off an engagement to be with me, it would be a scandal. John and I – we’d maybe have to duel.”

 

That gets Alex’s full attention. Her eyes snap open and she sits up straight. Her hand is still in Maggie’s but she squeezes her fingers tightly, now. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “You wouldn’t.”

 

Maggie shrugs with the shoulder that isn’t connected to Alex. “It would be within his rights to challenge me. For his honor. I mean, stealing his bride is quite the dishonorable act.”

 

Alex’s eyes are unreadable. “Would you do it?”

 

Maggie tilts her head a little. She’d meant this in a purely theoretical way, but Alex seems quite upset. “I don’t…I don’t know. I mean, it would never happen. No man would ever challenge a woman to a duel. And especially not John.”

 

“But if you were a man,” Alex presses. “Would you?”

 

Maggie shrugs again. “If it were the only way to keep you? To be with you? To have this?” She squeezes Alex’s hand, and then she says something true. “I would give my life for this. Yes.”

 

Alex swallows heavily, and the shadows from the firelight play on her throat, and Maggie has what feels like an absurd desire to touch. With her fingers and also, possibly, with her mouth.

 

“I would give my life for this too,” Alex says softly, but Maggie didn’t need to hear it to know that. She knows Alex would give her life for this, because Alex already has. She’s given up everything she ever expected her life to be, the second she sent that letter to John and got in her carriage and turned her horse towards Charleston. “But I would shoot you myself before I let you get into a duel over me.” She rolls her eyes. “Honestly. Only men could think of something so dumb and immature.”

 

Maggie snickers, but Alex wasn’t done. “Do you know why?”

 

Maggie has a guess, but she’s mesmerized by how the firelight looks, dancing around Alex’s hair and on the smooth skin of her cheek and down to the hollow of her throat, so she just stares.

 

“A duel means valuing the decisions of a faulty handgun over mine. Trusting a bullet on a gray morning over _my_ wants, _my_ opinions, how _I_ want my life to be. Letting some stupid gun decide who I spend my life with, instead of letting _me_ decide that for myself.”

 

Maggie – horrified – sucks in a breath, quietly. “Alex, no! I didn’t, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean—”

 

But Alex shushes her, softly. “No, I know. I know you didn’t.” She pauses for a second. “I know you wouldn’t.”

 

“Never,” Maggie breathes, with the strength of a promise. “I would never, Alex.”

 

“I think…” Alex is searching for the words, and Maggie lets her, letting her thumb continue its gentle movements. She feels so blissfully lucky to be here, in this room, with this brilliant woman who has decided she wants to spend her life here. Next to Maggie. “I know that it meant breaking off my engagement, and I know people would say it’s a sin, but, Maggie,” she lets out a little puff of air, and she looks directly into Maggie’s eyes. And it’s not like Maggie had any doubts, but the clarity and strength in Alex’s eyes fills her up, somewhere underneath her chest. “I think loving you is the most honorable thing I’ll ever do.”

 

Maggie moves, then, quickly standing before dropping to her knees in front of Alex’s chair. Alex starts, but Maggie soothes her, wordlessly urging her to stay. She reaches out for Alex’s other hand, holding both up close to her chest. She’s sitting up on her knees, looking up into Alex’s beautiful eyes. “Alex. My dearest, Alexandra.” She bends down, just a bit, to press a kiss to the back of Alex’s hand. “I promise, I swear, that I will honor you, and listen to you, and care for you, and love you, every single day.”

 

Another kiss, to the other hand. “I swear that I’ll never let anything or anyone come between us.”

 

She rubs her thumbs across Alex’s knuckles, careful to look up into Alex’s eyes. The fire is warm on her back, but the woman in front of her is blazing. “I swear to you, on everything that is holy, that loving you will be the most sacred and honorable part of my life. I swear to you, Alex. I swear it.” She finally drops her gaze, reverently bringing Alex’s hands up to her lips again.

 

She kisses Alex’s fingers, soft and trembling and gentle. First once, then twice, then five or six times. She finds herself turning them over, pressing kisses into Alex’s palms. Pressing her love up to Alex’s wrists, to the pad of her thumbs, to the edge of each finger.

 

She can hear Alex’s breath hitching, but she doesn’t stop. “I promise,” she kisses into Alex’s palms. “I swear it.”

 

* * *

 

Maggie doesn’t have much experience sharing beds. She and John never shared because their parents were wealthy, and boy and girl children only sleep together in less well-to-do families. She has no cousins nor sisters. She’s had some close bosom friends, growing up, but there was never a need to share a bed. Everyone’s parents had guest rooms, and everyone lived close together.

 

She shared with her maid, for a small while, but that was it.

 

Alex doesn’t seem to have the same compunctions. She still shares a room with Kara, Maggie recalls, and Alex has mentioned sharing a bed enough times that Maggie suspects that the two separate beds are a relatively new phenomenon for the Danvers sisters.

 

Indeed, Alex pulls back the covers and she turns over her shoulder and she asks, “Which side do you prefer?” She’s wearing a nightdress of Maggie’s, and it goes up to her neck and ties at her wrists and it’s absurdly ruffled and it falls all the way to the floor but it’s still the most visceral thing Maggie’s ever imagined. Alex, in _her_ nightdress, hair down, about to climb into _her_ bed.

 

Maggie, a little distracted, has no idea. She simply shrugs. “I don’t know. There are sides?”

 

Alex crinkles up her eyebrows, and it’s beautiful and adorable and Maggie can’t breathe. Again. “Where do you usually sleep?”

 

“In the middle!”

 

Alex laughs, probably at Maggie’s indignation. “Alright. I’ll take the right. You can have the middle _and_ the left, how about that?”

 

And Maggie thinks that sounds very, very good to her.

 

* * *

 

They slide under the covers. Maggie fusses with her nightdress for a few moments, because she doesn’t know what to do with her hands.

 

Alex finally reaches out and captures Maggie’s hands between both of hers. “Are you alright? Do you want me to go?”

 

“No!” It comes out a little more fervently than Maggie might have liked, but Alex just laughs again.

 

“Good,” she says softly. “So, just, relax, Maggie. Close your eyes and breathe.” She gently rubs up and down Maggie’s hands, her fingers smooth and firm on Maggie’s skin. They’ve blown out almost all of the candles and the night has grown dark and soft around them.

 

And Maggie tries, but her heart is racing and her breaths are stuttered a little bit. Alex isn’t miles away anymore. She’s only just a moment away, and Maggie’s never wanted something so much in her life. And Alex had the entire journey to think about what she wanted, about what might happen, but Maggie was completely unprepared. She’s reeling, and she feels like her brain is still moving in slow motion.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

Maggie finally closes her eyes, pinches them shut, and she tells the truth. “I’m afraid.”

 

Alex’s hands still. “Of me?”

 

“Of…everything. God, Alex, I want…I’ve never…” She opens her eyes and manages to look right at Alex as she says it. “I don’t know _what_ I want, but I want it so badly.”

 

Alex hums a little. “And that scares you?”

 

Maggie tries to nod, but mostly she just rubs her hair up and down the pillow. “It terrifies me.”

 

Alex lets go with one hand, reaching up to tuck some of Maggie’s stray hairs behind her ear. “I want you too,” she whispers, “so much.” She leaves her hand on Maggie’s cheek, and it makes Maggie feel stronger. “Have you…have you ever kissed?”

 

Maggie swallows. She knows Alex doesn’t mean what they’ve just done – how Maggie had kissed every inch of Alex’s hands. That was, by far, the most intimate experience of Maggie’s life, but she knows what Alex is asking. “No. Have you?”

 

It’s Alex’s turn to shake her head against the pillow. “No,” she whispers. “I’ve been waiting for you, I think.”

 

And that makes Maggie feel one hundred feet tall.

 

“Please, Maggie.” Alex is pleading, like there’s a chance in hell that Maggie will say no. “Please, can I?”

 

And Maggie is breathing out “ _God, yes_ ,” before Alex is even done asking the question, and Alex laughs again.

 

Alex’s hand is still on Maggie’s cheek, and Maggie’s comes up to gently touch the soft skin of Alex’s neck. They both move together – softly, slowly, full of months of want and years of need. It’s just a kiss – just one of what will be thousands, millions, between them, but it’s a revelation. It’s a revolution.

 

It’s long and tender and loving and neither knows what they’re supposed to do, but they both know what they want. And as the kiss gets deeper, and their bodies move closer together, Maggie realizes this is exactly what she’s been looking for. Kissing love into Alex’s palms had been reverent, a prayer, but this…this is something else entirely. This is a shout of jubilation, of triumph. This is riding a horse at full gallop, sailing safely through a storm, screaming into a thunderstorm.

 

This is everything.

 

They press together, and their starched white nightdresses can’t hold back the heat of their bodies, the pliability of their curves that have always been hidden and held behind corsets and layers of skirts. Alex fists her hand in Maggie’s hair – so gently – and Maggie takes a firmer hold of her neck, runs her hand up Alex’s cheek, touching her face for the very first time.

 

They kiss for what feels like forever. It’s impossibly softer than Maggie would ever have guessed, and wetter. There’s suction, a push and pull, that she hadn’t known to wish for.

 

They only break away when Alex giggles into her mouth.

 

Maggie pulls back, just enough to be able to speak. “What?”

 

“It’s just…” Alex bites her own lip, and something very new and very strong floods through Maggie’s body. “I will _never_ be satisfied.”

 

And Maggie can’t help but laugh. She knows exactly what Alex means. “You’d better keep me around, then,” she mumbles, already moving back in. “My dearest, Alexandra.”

 

* * *

 

Alex does.

 

* * *

 

They don’t stay in Charleston. There are too many eyes, too many questions. They move to Maine, to a comfortable house in Portland, where Maggie can manage a very small outpost of her uncle’s shipping company. There’s a lake and a nearby park, where they go to walk in the evenings. It’s simple and it’s quiet up there and it’s perfect.

 

There are plenty of women who live together, who share intimate friendships, who have lived out the war together in one house. No one really thinks twice about it. Most people in town assume they’re cousins, or war widows, and they simply don’t correct them.

 

Alex goes by Sawyer, in town, to make things easier. Portland is a small town, and it’s only a few day’s journey from New York – a week a most – but few people here even know of the Danvers sisters.

 

* * *

 

Kara marries well, a wealthy man who wants to show her the world. She’s beyond happy, and, whenever she can make the time, she comes to visit them in Portland. She never says a word about it, but she sees that the house is large but only one bedroom is used.

 

Nia also marries well, a wealthy war hero who grew up down the block. The Danvers fortune is secure. Kara’s life is large and public enough that the memory of Alex fades to the background.

 

She couldn’t be happier.

 

* * *

 

John marries well, to a girl that he truly loves. They move to Charleston after the war, and he takes over the company.

 

He and Maggie meet in New York, every year or so. They write letters, and it’s good. They’re good. He knows that she lives with Alex, that Alex is her companion. He says he’s happy that she’s not alone, and even though he doesn’t understand, Maggie is grateful.

 

* * *

 

Maggie is never satisfied. Her life is perfect – her home, her work, her companion – but Alex makes her insatiable.

 

But, it turns out, that’s more than alright with both of them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, my hopefully new and old imaginary friends.
> 
> Come visit me on my tumblr (performativezippers) and twitter (p_zippers) to learn useless things about my life, read my rants, see endless gifs about dinosaurs, and support my other work. Heart ya.
> 
> p.s. please vote on Nov 6 if you can, oh my god please


End file.
